DJ Hero 2: Inside the New Video Game

Rock Band and Guitar Hero have proven that miming songs on a plastic guitar can be a popular way to enjoy music. Next week Activision releases DJ Hero 2, the sequel to its ambitious music game about hip-hop and dance music. Instead of a guitar, bass and drum kit, DJ Hero is packaged with a small controller that imitates a turntable and mixer. Players perform mixes and not songs, cutting up sounds with the crossfader and nudging the turntable to “scratch” the music.

Speakeasy spoke with FreeStyleGames’ Dan Neil, the game’s musical director, about the unique challenge of translating DJ culture into a videogame.

Speakeasy: There was a time when everyone was saying turntables were outselling guitars. People were excited about DJ culture. How did DJ Hero come about?

Dan Neil: It was a meeting of two different groups of people within the UK—FreeStyleGames and a group of mashup DJs from London. Also, we were friends with scratch DJs from the turntablist scene. We pulled those three different groups of people together: the videogame understanding, mashup music culture, and scratch DJing. It was the first time all three of those things had intersected.

What are the changes you’ve made from DJ Hero that you are most excited about?

Personally speaking, there are three main aspects. On the musical side, we’ve increased the amount of electronic and dance content in DJ Hero 2. That was something that came from the community; people were looking for more electronic content. I think it’s resulted in more compelling gameplay. It’s got a more energetic feel, and a more contemporary shiny feel to the soundtrack.

Second, we had some freestyle features in DJ Hero, sections where the controller is handed over to the player to do what they want. We stepped that forward for DJ Hero 2. We added freestyle crossfading, which allows you to take full control over whether you’re hearing one record in the mashup or the other record in the mashup. It sounds really simple, and almost like a small feature, but when you play it, it’s really compelling. It really feels like you’re DJing. Well, you are DJing [laughs].

We’ve added freestyle scratching, so you can choose to move the turntable any way you like, and it’ll record inside the game; it’s amazing. It’ll produce real scratching based on the movement of your turntable.

The third thing for me is multiplayer, and this came from the gamers and also the critics, saying that the multiplayer support in DJ Hero could be stronger. We’ve added a bunch of multiplayer modes; we’ve made some specific mixes for two-player battling. It’s a game of oneupmanship, if you like. One person will do a section of a mix, and the next person will answer it.

What is the market for this game? Can a DJ game have potentially as broad an appeal as a rock game?

We’ve done some things in DJ Hero 2 to try and broaden the appeal. We’ve added full vocal support. Just as you get in a karaoke-style game, you’ve got the lyrics on the screen and you have implications of how well your’e doing in terms of pitch. You can interact with DJ Hero 2 in a compelling way as a vocalist.

You’re also a UK studio, and there is this UK influence in some of the tracks—the Dizzee Rascal, the drum & bass. Is there a UK sensibility that has ended up in the game, or any cultural disconnect in bringing the game over to the States?

That’s an interesting question. Firstly, we are a UK-based development studio, and a lot of our music production staff are here. We also have DJs who work in North America on the game. We also work with Activision, who are a North American company based in Santa Monica. We work with them almost all day, every day on choosing the songs. There’s a constant North American understanding pushed into the game.

Can the music in the game be listened to on its own, or is it the gameplay that completes it?

It’s interesting, because with the vocal introduction in DJ Hero 2, we’ve had to be really sympathetic to that when we’re creating the mixes. The singer has to have a really fluid vocal experience. That means there can’t be as much really heavy editing and rearranging of vocal lines, so the singer can feel good. It’s actually made the music sound better, because the vocals now flow much better in the track—which makes it much more similar to music that you’d hear on the radio.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.